UPDATE: We are still accepting applications.

We are excited to announce our call for partners to take part in the second phase of our Happier, Healthier Professionals (HHP) programme. We are inviting local authorities, police agencies and sixth form colleges (or schools with an attached sixth form) to participate in new research on improving the wellbeing of social workers, police officers and teachers across England.

This phase of the project will build on the first phase of the research programme, launched in January 2019, which saw 15 local authorities participate in three different projects. Findings from these projects will be available in June 2020.

This project will focus broadly on interventions to alleviate time poverty, increase social support, reduce administrative burden, and signal recognition and gratitude – all with the goal of increasing overall subjective well-being of employees in their workplaces. We are interested to see how these interventions impact burnout, job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, turnover and sickness absence rates.

Collaborating with academics and researchers from What Works for Children’s Social Care, the Harvard Business School, King’s College London, University of East Anglia, and What Works Wellbeing, each participating organisation will help design an intervention, tailored to their specific needs, implemented in an academically rigorous manner, and informed by the latest literature and best practice.

Rick Bearcroft, Family Group Conference Development Worker, Bracknell Forest, said of participating in the first phase:

“From our point of view, working with WWCSC has done a number of things. It made us realise we aren’t on our own dealing with issues of staffing, retention and welfare. It has highlighted and emphasised issues we need to address as an organisation, and kept the agenda live.”

“Working with WWC was collaborative, so we negotiated the interventions and how they were carried out, which in terms of modelling is how we need to relate to our workforce.”

Louise Reid, Head of Programmes at WWCSC said:
“We are excited about beginning this next phase of the Happier, Healthier Professionals programme. We recognise that social workers, teachers and police officers have some of the most important – but also challenging – roles in our society and hope that with the help of our collaborators, we can contribute to improving the wellbeing of these workforces”.

Successful partners will work with us from March 2020 onwards, to take part in these studies, and the findings from this body of research will be shared in February 2021.

We are still accepting applications. You can find more information, and details on how to apply, here. For more information, please contact Claire Clancy.

We are also interested in hearing from organisations who are doing innovative work related to the ideas above, as well as more broadly related to ways to improve employee wellbeing, and would potentially be interested in collaborating with us. If you would be interested in learning more, please contact us at Shibeal.OFlaherty@nesta.org.uk.